I apologise if this point has already been raised, I only found out just now about Ring Magazine basically being owned by Golden Boy. For me, the legitimacy of Ring belts and rankings has always been based on their total independence from anyone actively involved in the promotion/money side of boxing - so can anyone tell me I'm wrong (and I'm sure a few people will) when I say that Ring Magazine is now wide open to accusations of potential bias and manipulation? eg. In the past, if DLH shot up perhaps a few more ranking positions than expected after a fight, all we could say is "oh, they've give him a bit too much credit there". But now? How can anyone ignore the possibilities? It's like a student buying his college - as if the examiner would be brave enough to fail him. :nono [on a side note, I think the Golden Boy/Affliction thing is great :hey]
yea ring has lost its cred in my eyes. Still a good read but no longer an independant one. Fightnews rankings mean more to me than ring
agreed i tougth they where going to stay independet until i read what they said about the figth between oscar and paquiao
I could care less if Oscar signs with Affliction, though with his past fashion statements, he would be better being the Spokesmodel for Victoria's Secret. That being said, because it was the Precious ****ing Golden Boy purchasing RING, the rankings/ratings and the RING Magazine belts, nobody raised any eyebrows. Had Don King purchased the Magazine, the Sports Media in the United States, like ESPN would have gathered posses with lynching ropes.
The RING "Champ's" were BS well before Hoya had anything to do with that mag. There top 10 is OK but Ring Champs are bogus. It was an overpriced POS well before Hoya bought it.With the internet there mag has become useless.
The one time self proclaimed Bible of boxing was revered because of its unbiased nature and its true integrity , mostly due to Nathaniel Fleischer ... GBP and Affliction are making it somewhat biased , and its ratings will as you did quote once before go a little pear shaped........ I was very impressed with Rings criteria in the late 80's stating that a fighter cannott lose a title by any means but in the ring.. when they had Mike Spinks as Champion ahead of Mike Tyson.. But it didn't take long for that to rectify itself..........
This is very true. I have been purchasing Boxing Mags/Rags since the mid 80's and sans internet they were all we had, other than an occasional article in the Sports Section. But now, RING is WAYYYY overpriced at 9 dollars, and we get news updated by the hour on Fightnews.
Haha, sorry, like I said I apologise if it's already been raised. I've not been on this board for a good while (lost my last account details), and I couldn't be arsed trawling through thousands of threads to see whether or not I was replicating. I'm personally gutted about Ring losing its autonomy. Even though some of you have legitimate complaints about the previous state of the magazine, it was still the purest source of rankings in a lot of people's eyes. Not so now. In many walks of life, that kind of purchase would be blocked by some kind of monopolies commission. For the English people, do you think Chelsea (or Man City now :verysad) would be allowed to buy the Premiership? It's that ridiculous. It isn't just a magazine - its ratings have a real impact worldwide.
